


Age of Fire & Blood

by On_A_Meat_Hook



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25813816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/On_A_Meat_Hook/pseuds/On_A_Meat_Hook
Summary: “A Targaryen, alone in Thedas, is a terrible thing.”
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Iron Bull, Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Fen'Harel | Solas/Original Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Age of Fire & Blood

“Ada.” The little voice calls from her bedroom, adjacent from her father office, where a candle still burns and a quill scratches parchment as he writes. His chair creaks as he stands, and silken slippers slide across the floor before he appears in her doorway. 

Her father is tall for an elf, and his shoulders are wide under fine robes and furs. His long hair is the color of smoke and silver and tied up with golden threads, kind smile softening his otherwise stern features. His daughter sits up in bed in the dark, one tiny hand rubbing her eyes. 

“I cannot sleep, Ada.” Her little voice wavers with frustration when he appears, and her father crosses the room and sits on the edge of her little bed. Her curious hand reaches out and takes hold of the soft shadowcat pelt he wears over his shoulder, belted with golden medallions. 

“Will you tell me a story?” She asks sweetly, and his eyes brighten and a shadow of a smile is in the corner of his mouth. She knows he loves telling stories. Even in the dim light, her eyes shine like her mothers, and he reaches out and strokes her long curls. Silver like starlight. 

Though she appears an ordinary little girl, her long silver hair and articulation are the only surface indicators she might be different from any other child. Though she appears a tiny three years, she had in fact been borne almost forty years ago. Her father kept her his precious secret, few know the details of the daughter of Fen’Harel. What she looked like and where she was, whether she even existed outside of rumor was a secret few were privy to, so fiercely her father protected her. 

“Any tale you might want, Vhenan.” He soothes her, and she pushes back her blanket and cuddles into his side. 

“The tale of the Wolf and the Dragon Queen!” Her eyes light up when she requests her favorite story, and her father sighs with amusement. His daughter loved any song and story about dragons, griffins, krakens and other ancient beasts. 

“Again, Da’len?” He asks, and she nods vigorously, smiling far too excitedly for a little girl who intends to sleep anytime soon. 

“Alright.” He relents easily, with one arm scooping up his daughter and sitting her on his thigh. He sighs deeply as he recalls the tale of his past. 

“A hundred thousand years ago, far to the west where the world is always winter, things were not always as they are now. A great kingdom rose and fell, made of seven kingdoms, and the house of the dragon ruled over the seven great kingdoms.” 

“The Targaryens!” She chimed with delight, and he taps her nose with his pinky finger.

“You mustn't interrupt, Vhenan.” She quiets, cheeks straining to contain her smile. 

“Until one day, civil war broke out among the members of the House Targaryen, dragonriders destroyed whole fleets of ships and melted castles to nothing but twisted stone with their dragonfire. Family turned on family, and young and old dragons burned and died fighting one another. The usurper queen Rhaenyra captured the capital city of Kings Landing, taking her sister Helaena and all her children captive in one cruel stroke.” This part of the story, he smooths over. He knows the truth of the queens capture, and could never repeat it. The usurper sent men to corner the queen as she took her sons and daughter to bid goodnight to their grandmother. The hired swords threatened her and her children, and forced her to choose which of her sons would die as they held swords to their throats. If she did not choose, they would kill both boys, and rape her daughter before killing her too. It was a choice impossible for any mother to make. 

When queen Helaena had chosen her younger son Mealor, hoping he was too young to understand what was happening, they took the head of the older crown prince Jaehaerys anyway. Helaena was inconsolable for days, when her younger son Mealor shied away from her, knowing his mother had chosen him to die. She would try to send him from the city in secret, but Rhaenyra’s men intercepted him and his guards a few days later as he fled. Dashed against the stones like a sack of potatoes and tossed into the river, her sister had told her with wicked delight as Helaena descended into madness. The despair of losing both of her sons drove the queen to lock herself away in her chambers, and her sister began selling the key. Men paid to have their vicious way with the former queen, and eventually, even the dragon was broken.

“Unwilling to bend to the will of her evil sister, Queen Helaena leapt from her window onto the spikes below the maidenvault where she was prisoner. At the moment of her death, the queens mount, the great crucelean dragon Dreamfyre, rose with a mighty roar where she was chained in the dragonpit, breaking her chains and thrashing wildly as she sensed her rider pass into the afterlife.” The child gasps and her hands fly over her mouth, playing shocked, though she’s heard this story a thousand times. 

“She was released into the afterlife, as a vengeful ghost. She searched for her daughter, who she sensed still lived. Even in death, her spirit drew on the magic of the dragons. She could sense each of them individually; crimson Arrax came and went, brilliant gold Sunfyre roosted over dragonstone. Their young dragons never played, they fought and died before growing large. The family dragons went extinct, and three hundred years later, the last Targaryen and her three dragons froze when winter swept the Seven Kingdoms. Men had no choice but to go east, as far as east goes, but the Queens spirit was stuck in the castle where she died, unable to break free from repeating the loop of her death and torture.” 

“How did she escape the castle?” Fen’Harel hugs her a little tighter when the question bubbles out. 

“Far to the lands of the east, the Evanuris had discovered the secrets of magic, and the Veil was created.” This part of the story he smooths over as well. There can only be so many civil wars in this story. When he looks down into his daughters deceptively innocent eyes, he feels the familiar stab of knowing she understands what he does not say aloud. 

“And the veil flooded the whole world, and swallowed up the queens ghost where it wandered in the ruined castle. Do you know what happened to the queens ghost next?” He asks, and his smart girl immediately picks up the thread of the story. 

“She loved her daughter so much, she became a spirit to walk the fade and find her!” He cannot contain his smile. Its a simple explanation, but true enough. 

“Yes, most spirits are driven mad when entering or leaving the fade, but the Queen always remembered who she was. She walked the fade to find others with dragonsblood. Magic surged through her, fresh as a drink of water, warm as crawling up to a campfire after trudging through snow. Between the trees, beasts with bodies of fire and other strange things attack her, throwing beams of ice and fire, so she grew hard scales to protect herself. And when the strongest of the beasts cornered her, she grew the wings of a dragon and soared through the void of the fade where she could not be reached. She explores, finding castles and their surrounding cities, ships on still waters and nothing at all familiar.” His daughter waves her hand dismissively and blows a raspberry. 

“Boring fade, get to the fun part!” She urges, making him purse his lips. She’s impatient, just like her mother. 

\-------------------------------------

Helaena’s spirit knew she was looking for something, but she doesn’t remember what it is. She senses a strong beacon of magic, and a large group of mages moving towards it. Curious, she changes her course to make for the beacon. She knows it is close, but she cannot see it in the fade. Wherever it is, it is made of the same magic that swallowed her. 

“Mayhaps the same magic that swallowed me, can spit me back out.” She searches tirelessly, banishing any of the beasts that dare cross her path. She has resided in the fade for time that feels infinite. She remembers her life before, but it is distant, and she has no time to dwell on any of it now. Her urgency to search never wanes, her curiosity is never quenched. 

Eventually, all come together in a great domed building. It is large enough to be a castle, but Helaena gets a sense that the place is a temple. Where there is a great gathering of mages, there are other spirits that are attracted aside from Helaena. They fill the halls and scrabble over one another, screeching at Helaena where she crawls across the ceiling to avoid them. They’re drawn to the corrupted, miserable and dying, and there are many in this place. She and the others wait, for what she doesn’t truly know, only that she is waiting. The beacon is near, and she gives chase as it’s carried around the building. 

Whoever is carrying it takes it to the largest room. When it is activated, it sends ripples through the fade, and the demons draw nearer, wild with excitement and crawling over one another to get closer to its energy. It flavors the air with the metallic flavor of blood, dragons blood, inciting the spirits further. When Helaena swings into sight of it, she stops to stare in wonder. The curtain that separates their spirit world from that of the living is growing thin, and around her they can see the living, grey swirling specters just out of reach among them. The beacon casts brilliant emerald light across their realms, heavy humid magic in the air. 

Helaena snaps her wings, and dives with a roar. She imagines she has Dreamfyres claws, tearing through fiery red and purple demons, who squeal and scurry away. She’s close enough to reach the beacon, eyes fixed on it. It is beautiful, suspended in the air with its shapes and mechanisms moving in ways that should be impossible. 

"By the gods, they are sacrificing them!" She cries to herself when they drag the first man into the center of the room and slit his throat, letting it spill out onto the glowing orb. She cannot see them clearly, the shadowy impressions of the living in the fade, but a sickened prickling crawls up her spine as the acrid smell of bloodmagic permeates the air, inciting the demons and spirits further. 

She whirls, wings raised and spitting wildfire. She is old and powerful, none of the lesser spirits dare challenge her, but they cannot deny the call of the beacon and the offerings of blood. They squeal and writhe, driven wild with the scent of blood and mana. When she feels safe turning her back on them, she measures up the mortal holding it. He is a twisted, disgusting creature of a man, far taller than her and horribly disfigured. She had seen warlocks like him, power hungry and entirely unawares of their own corruption. He raises the beacon, and Helaena steps forward, pressing her hands against the invisible curtain between them. The veil bends to her will, and she gathers herself tightly, pressing out with everything she has.

With a great downward stroke of her wings, she reaches out and lifts the orb from the hands of the twisted mortal who holds it, rocketing past him into the air. For a moment, all is still, his face contorts in rage as the woman materializes above him, triumph in her grin as she hangs in the air above him.

Powerful magic snaps through her, pain erupts where she hadn’t felt any sensation for so long, but still, she clings to the orb. A flash of white fire levels the room, and the stone roof roars as it collapses inward. A thousand voices scream at once as they die in a heartbeat, their bodies incinerated. In her hands, the beacon explodes in a flash of lightning, hurling her back down onto the tile with force so great it cracks around her like ice. When she loses consciousness, she falls through the tile and back into the dreamworld, and this time she only has a moment to orient herself before she hits stone. As she wakes, armored boots run towards her as her fingers scrabble over the stone frantically, recoiling at the touch of filthy dirt and stones. She tries to gather exhausted limbs under her, push herself up, defend herself from the sudden barrage of senses before incredible pain rips through her. In her panic, she tries to scream, and a gush of hot blood spills from her mouth and the ruined mess of her throat. 

"By the maker, get a healer! oh fuck, oh fuck!" The soldiers stand shell-shocked as blood seeps through her dress. She clasps her hands over her throat, fingers shaking wildly as the edges of her vision blacken as she looks down at herself, falling to her knees with a wet crumple of crinoline. Her eyes roll to the back of her skull as she collapses, and she feels nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I just wanted to write epic dragon battles...  
> if you have a question write a comment im not good at writing notes


End file.
